PORTLAND: GUARDS: Portland will turn point guard duties over to rookie DAMIAN LILLARD. The leap from Big Sky Conference to NBA will be a big one, but Lillard is an efficient scorer who can manage the offense . . . WESLEY MATTHEWS is more of a glue guy. He can't create his own offense, but he can heat up as a streaky catch-and-shoot guy . . . RONNIE PRICE should emerge as Lillard's top backup, a role he's filled at numerous stops . . . Second-rounder WILL BARTON could emerge as a rotation player. He's a versatile wing who must prove he can play off the ball . . . SASHA PAVLOVIC will play both the two and three, and can still stroke it from long distance . . . NOLAN SMITH, a misstep of the last regime, is a fringe roster player . . . ELLIOT WILLIAMS, a defensive-minded combo guard, tore his Achilles in mid-September and expects to miss the entire season. FORWARDS: LaMARCUS ALDRIDGE had a couple of health scares over the past six months, but he should enter the season 100 percent. He's clearly Portland's best player . . . NICOLAS BATUM felt rightly disrespected by his secondary role in Portland. All signs point to a bigger role in 2012-13 . . . VICTOR CLAVER is an athletic scrapper who won't do much offensively even if he does get big minutes . . . JOEL FREELAND could become their first big man off the bench . . . JARED JEFFRIES is still relevant as a defensive specialist . . . The highlight of LUKE BABBITT's career might be that mention on Onion:Sportsdome. CENTERS: J.J. HICKSON is a black hole on offense and a liability on defense, but he can score and rebound, which is good enough to be the starting center in Portland's weak frontcourt . . . MEYERS LEONARD might not be quite ready for 30-plus minutes, but he'll have to learn on the fly due to Portland's lack of veteran bigs. He has some long-term upside as a 7-footer with some nice athleticism and touch inside 10 feet.

DALLAS: GUARDS: DARREN COLLISON's jump shot might be shaky, but he can get into the lane at will. He'll be a much different look than Jason Kidd had been in Big D . . . O.J. MAYO becomes the second option in this offense. He'll have the ball in his hands a lot . . . VINCE CARTER will come off the bench. At this point, he's a three-point specialist, and not a very good one . . . DELONTE WEST will back up both guard spots. Don't be surprised if he overtakes Collison at some point . . . RODDY BEAUBOIS can heat up in an instant, but he has work to do to make this rotation . . . DAHNTAY JONES is roster filler . . . DOMINIQUE JONES enters the year on the roster bubble . . . JARED CUNNINGHAM will learn the point guard position watching from the bench as a rookie. FORWARDS: After a slow start last season, DIRK NOWITZKI looked like the Dirk of old in the second half of the year. He's still got something left in the tank, but it's still unclear if the swelling in his knee will require surgery, something that would shelve him for more than a month . . . SHAWN MARION is still an important cog in Carlisle's creative defensive gameplans, so he'll keep playing big minutes despite his dwindling offensive skills . . . ELTON BRAND is still relevant, even behind Nowitzki, because of his ability to play some center . . . BRANDAN WRIGHT will be in and out of the rotation again, but he's now relatively healthy and showed signs of being a serviceable rotation player a year ago . . . Rookie Jae CROWDER profiles as a potentially solid second-unit player, but he'll be buried on this depth chart. CENTERS: CHRIS KAMAN gives Dallas some offensive skill at center, but he's not exactly the defensive presence they've needed. He'll log the bulk of the minutes here, but there are going to be a handful of games where the Mavs have to sit him and go small for defensive purposes . . . 27-year-old rookie BERNARD JAMES could fill Ian Mahinmi's old role of a shot-blocker/fouler off the bench.

LaMarcus Aldridge came up big down the stretch in carrying the Portland Trail Blazers to victory in their last game.

That probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to the Dallas Mavericks.

A week after his buzzer beater buried the Mavericks, Aldridge will again look to frustrate one of his favorite opponents when the Trail Blazers visit Dallas on Wednesday night.

Portland (25-23) seemed well on its way to winning the opener of a six-game road trip Monday in Minnesota, leading by 19 points at the start of the fourth quarter. The Trail Blazers, though, began to fall apart and the Timberwolves pulled within one with 36.9 seconds left.

Aldridge then took over, swishing a 21-footer and blocking a jump shot with 7.9 seconds remaining as Portland hung on for a 100-98 win, its fifth in seven games.

"Teams are going to pressure us, so I think it's learning," coach Terry Stotts said. "But winning on the road is not easy and we needed this one."

Aldridge finished with 25 points on 12-of-17 shooting and grabbed 13 rebounds, and he could be poised for another big game.

Aldridge hit a game-tying 3-pointer - the first one he made on 10 attempts this season - with 4.9 seconds left and then made a turnaround jumper with 0.2 seconds remaining to help the Blazers come back from a 21-point third-quarter deficit in a 106-104 home win over Dallas last Tuesday.

"We cannot let Aldridge get set on the block 10 feet from the basket and let him turn around and shoot a wide-open shot," Dirk Nowitzki said after that defeat.

The problem for Dallas, however, is it has routinely been letting Aldridge, who finished with 29 points, find his rhythm. In eight games against the Mavericks since 2010-11, Aldridge is averaging 27.3 points - his best versus any Western Conference team.

Despite his success, the Blazers are 4-4 in those games, and they've lost four of five at the American Airlines Center.

The Mavericks (20-28) are returning to Dallas, where they've averaged 108.8 points in winning four of six, for a five-game homestand after a 112-91 loss to Oklahoma City on Monday capped a 1-3 trip. Shawn Marion was the lone bright spot for Dallas, which trailed by as much as 33 points in the fourth quarter, as he shot 10 of 14 for 23 points.

Nowitzki was 3 of 11 and scored 10 after missing the previous two games with a right adductor strain, and he felt most of his team's problems stemmed from 14 turnovers leading to 23 points for the Thunder. Dallas is 6-20 when committing 14 or more turnovers compared to 14-8 when it has 13 or less.

"That always gets us in trouble when we turn the ball over. We're usually not very good when we can't go back and set our defense up. That really, for us, is a recipe for disaster," Nowitzki said.

The Trail Blazers were significantly worse protecting the ball Monday.

Wes Matthews and Damian Lillard each had five of Portland's 28 turnovers, the most in regulation by any team all season. Nicolas Batum had a team-high seven turnovers and is clearly still being bothered by a sore right wrist.

Batum is averaging 7.8 points in his last five games - 7.9 fewer than his season average.

"If he or the trainer says he can't play, then I can't play him, but he's very important to what we do," Stotts said.